17 



famine-stricken districts in the south, are over- 

 populated, the reverse is often the case, as, for 

 example, in Burma, which would be the chief seat 

 of this new industry which Mr. Routledge advocates. 

 There labour is exceedingly dear, a coolie command- 

 ing one rupee (say Is. lOd.) per diem in the rice- 

 shipping season, which is generally a busy time of 

 the year with foresters. Moreover, as the people 

 are physically weaker than Europeans, they do not 

 turn out more than two-thirds of the work which the 

 latter would perform in a day. 



19. Another opinion which Mr. Routledge ex- 

 Bamboo land suit- presses is at variance with my experi- 



able for any other 



cr p- ence, namely, that the bamboo "will 



not only groiv, but flourishes in localities unsuited for 

 other cultivation " (p. 36). Now I maintain that this 

 is quite a wrong impression ; indeed I would go 

 further, and say, that all localities suited to the pro- 

 pagation of bamboo would, cceteris paribus, be equally 

 well suited to the cultivation of almost any other 

 crop. On the hill slopes, where with the exception 

 of Bambusa spinosa (which is confined to the plains, 

 requiring deep alluvium near large rivers) all bam- 

 boos thrive best during the annual fires, large 

 quantities of bamboo are consumed with the other 

 trees, and the land is afterwards cultivated with 

 various crops. And in the plains the sites that 

 would have to be selected for the development of 

 Mr. Routledge' s scheme (namely, lands situated on 

 a stream containing water throughout the year) are 

 precisely the localities which would at all times be 

 B 



